Page 42 of Wolf Bane (Marked #3)

Her voice, raised in a shrill scream, bounced off the concrete walls and ceiling. Tyler winced, shaking his head in a very lupine way even as he kept pressure on Daniel. Justin just whimpered, scrubbing his face with his empty hand, staring down at Eliza.

“I didn’t ask to be changed,” he said softly. “I just thought I was paying for some med school stuff, you know? A bit extra, so I could actually eat a vegetable, instead of ramen and oatmeal every day. Getting a textbook instead of trying to illegally download that shit.”

His smile was a flicker, weak and crooked.

Slowly, he moved closer, gaze lasering in on Eliza.

“I’m a freak, you know? I don’t trust my own body.

I can’t. I… I feel sick all the time . Like constant aches in my bones.

My heart is just buck wild in here,” he thumped his chest, dark eyes wide as he picked up steam, “and it’s because you—you and your fucking freaks—decided to use me.

To treat me like your fucking science fair project!

” He pressed the button on the control, Eliza’s shrill scream bouncing from the walls.

Daniel snarled, twisting to get free but Tyler held him fast for the moment.

“Justin,” I shouted. “Stop! Justin, we need her to talk!”

He moved his thumb, breathing hard, body shaking so violently I thought he might be on the verge of collapse. “I don’t want her to. I want all of them to shut the fuck up forever!”

I lurched at him, grabbing his arm before he could press the button again. He sobbed, fighting only a little until he just dropped. Strings cut, folded over, thumped on the floor dropped. Scrambling over to him, I crouched down, hand on his back.

“Breathe, okay? Let’s breathe.” A dozen things tumbled together at the same time—Justin’s health problems weren’t just down to exposure to this Wolf Bane shit.

It was deeper than that, all the way back to the experimentation he underwent.

Probably before, something he either never knew he had or never wanted to discuss.

Anxiety, depression, only he knew, but it was exacerbated by what he’d gone through, by what had been done to him and his own guilt and self-recrimination over choices he made.

Shit. Maybe I should’ve pushed him to talk with Gina Perrin sooner.

Justin heaved, baring his teeth in a choked growl, twisting away from me.

“Justin, breathe, damn it! Focus on my voice, okay? We’re not gonna let them hurt you. Listen?—”

“Weak,” Eliza croaked. “Pathetic and weak. Doctor Babin, we need you . We need—” She cut herself off, shaking as she pushed to her feet.

Daniel stopped struggling under Tyler’s grasp and, with a creak and pop of bone, an awful wet sound just above a whisper, shifted into his human shape once more.

Tyler fell back before leaping to his feet, poised for a fight, but Daniel ignored him for the moment, rushing to Eliza’s side.

“Tell him,” she ordered Daniel, voice trembling. “Tell him.”

“You’re the one who came closest. We need to know why. Garrow’s research is incomplete, and he’s promised us he has the means now, the ability to finish things.”

“That’s not as hopeful as you think it is. Not if he has you out here killing off your people.”

“They’re culling,” Tyler said, spat really. “It’s not new. It’s been part of our culture since as far back as we have history.”

Daniel nodded, grim-faced and maybe a little pitying as he eyed me and Justin. “Keeping the pack strong. The weak are removed from the bloodline. The ones who will slow us down, dilute our strength.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, what in the online incel neckbeard bullshit,” I muttered. “So, you’ll even kill off your own father,” I demanded, jabbing a finger towards Robards. “Kill little kids? All because they’re not perfect?”

“My father was a mistake,” Eliza began, but Daniel gave her a shake, silencing her.

“He lied to you,” Daniel reminded her with that irritating, patronizing patience that made my teeth ache and skin crawl. “Eustace is a liar. He kept this from you.” Another shake. Another whimper.

“Hey!” Tyler, naked as the day he was born, strode forward. “Stop that, asshole!”

Daniel turned, ready to strike, but Tyler was faster this time.

He leapt, shifting to strike Daniel feet-first. Daniel hit the ground with an awful thunk , Eliza tangled in the chaos.

Daniel gave one guttural snarl before Tyler slammed him back to the floor, clamping his teeth on Daniel’s neck.

Daniel twitched, chest heaving, but didn’t move.

“Tyler—”

He growled at me, low and guttural. His ears were pinned back, teeth bared to the gums. For a horrible moment, I wondered if there was something they’d slipped him, something they’d done, because I’d never seen him like this.

Didn’t even know it was possible for him to be like this.

But after a long, breathless moment, he shifted, turning his face away from me.

Dismissing me. And I could breathe again.

“Okay. I’ll take that for a fuck off ,” I muttered, holding my hands out to the side, showing him I wasn’t going to grab for him.

“Eliza, listen to me. People are dying. Garrow isn’t going to do anything good here.

He tortured us,” I motioned to Justin. “Left us both fucked up for life. And our friend and his daughter, too. He murdered children, Eliza. Dozens of them. And now you’re letting him make you complicit in this. ”

“No,” she insisted. “No, he’s not. I’m the one who contacted him. I’m the one making it happen.” She didn’t try to get to her feet again, eyeing Tyler warily before she said, “His work was almost perfect. I can make it perfect.”

“The only thing you’re making is a pile of corpses,” I slashed out, words sharp and heavy. “People aren’t experiments, Eliza. No matter what Garrow thinks he’s doing. It’s torture .”

“It’s playing God and winning ,” she snapped out. “The weak are removed. The strong will remain and make us stronger by virtue of their blood.”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered.

Justin beat me to the punch. He wrenched the control for the shock collar away, jamming the button until Eliza howled and slumped to the floor, not unconscious but definitely done with her villain monologue.

Tyler eyed Justin with a mix of pride and wariness. “Hand that back to Lan, alright? Let’s get that away…”

We got Justin to sit finally, Eliza still a twitching lump on the floor as Tyler gathered up Daniel. “If anyone comes back,” Tyler began. I just nodded. Fight our way out or die.

* * *

Tyler managed a semi-conscious Daniel down to the cage before returning to Daniel, Eliza, and I in the lab area.

“I can’t find the other two,” he huffed. “The layout of this place is insane. I got lost twice on the way downstairs.”

“Daniel’s going to have a motherfucker of a headache,” I said. “Are you sure he was breathing? Maybe I should…”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Tyler said firmly. “Let him have his concussion. He gave you two already. He needs to catch up.”

Justin made a sad, dry sound in his throat, the cough I thought was gone tearing around the edges of his breath.

“I was trying to pull up everything,” he said.

“Everything I could manage. The things we’d need to start breaking down what this virus is, you know?

I thought maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing.

I was like hey, silver lining. Getting kidnapped a-fucking-gain, but this time it’s helping cut my research time in half. ”

He scrubbed his hands over his sweaty, pale face and shook his head.

“Everything was going so fast. It felt good. Right, you know? I mean, I still feel like hammered dogshit on a hot shingle, but… Maybe I felt a tiny bit normal , too. My head wasn’t spinning so fast. I didn’t feel like I was just ruining everyone’s lives around me…

I still felt— feel —sick most of the day but not… ” He jammed his finger to his temple.

Tyler and I exchanged worried looks before he took a few steps towards Justin, gingerly reaching out to grasp his shoulder, giving him time to see the movement coming so he could pull away if he wanted.

Justin let out a broken, dry sob and flung himself at Tyler, making him stumble.

“It’s… okay, it’s not okay. It sucks sweaty cheesy balls, but we’re here with you. And you’re going to be?—”

“If you say okay,” Justin croaked, “I might hit you.”

Tyler huffed a small laugh at that, pulling Justin in for another hug.

I decided discretion was the better part of friendship and not to mention Tyler was still naked as a jaybird. Instead, I turned to Eliza in her huddle on the floor. “Where is Garrow right now? You’re not doing all of this for some sort of grand reveal to him. You have to know where he is.”

She nodded. “But you’ll ruin it.”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.” I glanced up at her father, quiet and still. “He’s not on life support. What’ve you done to him?”

“Nothing. Daniel brought him here from the council clinic last night. I signed him out against medical advice. He hasn’t woken up. He won’t.” She finally met my glare. “I’ve sedated him, to keep him calm. He was fretful. A danger to himself. But he’s not on anything other than some propofol.”

I swore loudly at that. “Jesus. You just gave that to him with no workup?” I demanded, picking my way around the stands of equipment to get to Robards’ bedside and ignoring her muttered excuses about googling dosages.

His pulse and respiration were slow and regular, but that did little to shake my concern.

“His temp is high,” I noted. “Is there infection?”

The bite on his leg wasn’t healing like mine had. Whatever amount of were he carried, it wasn’t enough to speed the process. Eliza joined me, keeping out of arm’s reach to stand at the foot of her father’s bed.

“Why did you bring him here? Why didn’t you leave him in the clinic?”

“They were warehousing him. Letting him die. And as much anger as I have over his lies, he’s still…

he’s still my dad.” Her voice broke on the last word, piercing me straight through my chest. “Surely you know what that’s like, Doctor Babin.

I’ve read the records Garrow kept about your intake and family history. ”

“What I know about my family history is very different from what’s true, I’m starting to learn.

But… I do understand. My aunt raised me.

Loved me, I thought. And she died horribly.

I’m angry at her lies, at what she enabled.

But I can’t shake the part of me that remembers sitting in her lap, helping her decorate for Christmas.

Laughing at stupid sitcoms together.” How she’d comfort me when I was ill.

How she’d tell me about my parents, my grandparents, these wonderful stories that let me absolve them of the awfulness I’d been taught had led me to live with her.

Or maybe that was all a lie too. And Cleverly had been telling the truth, at least as far as my parents were concerned.

God, I had a bastard of a headache.

“Eliza, do you believe Garrow will help your father? What he did to me, to the others… It was torture. It was abuse. I was phenomenally lucky to survive. Most of the others didn’t.

And we were children. Justin is the only adult to have survived the experiments.

We were young and relatively healthy. Your father’s unlikely to make it through a regiment of anything experimental. Even with were DNA in the mix.”

Eliza sniffed, her expression slipping back into cool indifference. A mask she wore easily. “It’s better he die with honor restored than as a stain on our name.”

“Do you even hear yourself?” I hissed. “With honor? Hon, he’s dying from an infection! He’s dying because his body can’t handle these rapid changes! It wasn’t made for this! Whatever the Clemenses gave him?—”

“Was a happy accident,” she snapped. “They weren’t meant to, but Celestine thought she could take my spot. She’s had a thing for Garrow for years. Sick old woman. Letting her crotch lead the way.”

Well, ew . Not that old people have sexual desire was gross but just that mental image of leading the way with… well. Yeah. Ew.

“Eliza. What’s in the Wolf Bane?”

She chuckled softly. “The name was my idea. Garrow thought it was ridiculous.”

I waited, biting my tongue. It is.

“It’s based on the formula he used with your cohort. It was the most successful?—”

“With two survivors.”

“Hm. We made some changes to accelerate the process. The strong survive. The weak ones, the ones poisoning our lines…” She spread her hands, letting the invisible bodies slip through her fingers.

Vomiting was definitely a possibility. “So, you get to play God over weres and shifters? You get to decide who lives and dies based on your own personal metrics.”

“Come now, Doctor Babin. You know it’s not like that. You know how risk assessment works medically.”

“This isn’t the same thing as someone with myocardial damage,” I shot back. “This is genocide.”

The word was heavy, damning. She jerked back, horror dancing over her expression. “No, it’s preservation .”

“Fucking hell, tell fascist Barbie to shut up,” Tyler muttered. “What are we doing here, Lan? We need to make tracks one way or another.”

Eliza was already backing away when I turned to face her again. “No. No, no, no. You need to help me. You owe it to Garrow! He made you nearly perfect!” She clawed at the collar around her neck, yelping when Justin pressed the button again. “Stop it!”

“Tyler, get that out of his hand,” I snapped. “Eliza, we’re not going anywhere, okay? We’re not. Show me what you want my help with. Show me.” I glanced back at Tyler, who grimaced but nodded brusquely. “Is there drinking water here? Something for Justin? He needs water, Eliza. He’s been sick.”

“I know,” she whispered, eyeing him over my shoulder. “He survived the cull. Maybe he’s stronger than we thought.” She silently pointed to a small, silver fridge at the end of one of the lab tables. “There’s water in there.”

“No. Tap,” Justin said sharply. “I don’t trust anything she could’ve added shit to.”

She rolled her eyes but shifted her pointing finger towards a low counter along the back wall. Tyler led Justin over, cupping his own hands so Justin could drink without spilling everything from his own shaking hands.

“If I’m not back here in an hour,” I said to Tyler, who nodded again.

“We’ll burn this shit to the ground.”